Middletown mayor: 1 million gallons of water lost during major water main break

1M gallons lost: Water main break closes schools, postpones surgeries

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6:31 am EDT, Wednesday, October 26, 2016

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The source of the water main break that caused the loss of 1 million gallons of water on Wednesday, shutting off service and lowering pressure significantly throughout Middletown.
Courtesy Mayor Dan Drew less

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The source of the water main break that caused the loss of 1 million gallons of water on Wednesday, shutting off service and lowering pressure significantly throughout Middletown.
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Photo: Digital First Media

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The source of the water main break that caused the loss of 1 million gallons of water on Wednesday, shutting off service and lowering pressure significantly throughout Middletown.
Courtesy Mayor Dan Drew less

Contributed photo
The source of the water main break that caused the loss of 1 million gallons of water on Wednesday, shutting off service and lowering pressure significantly throughout Middletown.
Courtesy ... more

Photo: Digital First Media

Middletown mayor: 1 million gallons of water lost during major water main break

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MIDDLETOWN >> One million gallons of water were lost during a major water main break Wednesday that closed all Middletown schools, forced Middlesex Hospital to postpone some surgeries and shut off water service to homes and businesses throughout the city for about eight and a half hours.

A 24-inch main burst in the early morning off Silvermine Road near the Connecticut Juvenile Training School and Connecticut Valley Hospital, Mayor Daniel Drew wrote in a 5 a.m. email, causing an “extraordinary and very difficult situation.”

He likened the leak to “a burst artery near your heart.”

It took half the day to get the situation remediated.

By 1:30 p.m., “the treated water levels in the tanks and pressures are back to normal,” Drew said in a release, adding that he had closed the city’s emergency operations center a half-hour before.

“Our water treatment facility is like the heart of the water system and the main that broke today carries away from it massive amounts of treated water,” Drew said in a statement just after 2 p.m. “We estimate that we lost approximately 1 million gallons in about an hour. That’s a volume we’ve never before experienced.”

To give perspective, the average in-ground swimming pool holds 7,000 gallons — so losing 1 million gallons is like losing the water in 142 in-ground swimming pools in an hour, Drew said.

“When the water main blew, it caused a 20 foot crack running the length of a pipe and an unbelievable amount of water was gushing out,” Drew said. “When the pipe burst, the other pipes couldn’t get fed with water because so much water was coming out.”

Mid-afternoon, public works crews were rebuilding Silver Mine Road, where a 2- to- 3-foot trench had been carved away by the massive amount of escaping water that was rolling like a stream down the hill toward Silver Street.

Drew said when the pipe first burst, workers were racing against time to plug the break.

“From a technical standpoint, the loss of this main is less important than how quickly it lost water,” he said. “Our challenge was getting the leak stopped before we lost everything in the tank, which would have presented us with a whole different set of challenges.”

Drew says the city has a “rough idea” of what might be the cause.

“If you look at the pipes, which are laid in 18 foot sections, one full section (a 20 foot length) was cracked. The best we can figure is during a power outage in the area last week, as a protective measure the valve closed,” he said.

If a lot of water moves quickly — like a huge wave hitting the side of a ship — it can force a hairline fracture, Drew said.

“Over a week’s time the pipes get weak enough and it will reach a crescendo,” the mayor said.

And when there is a lull overnight and then people wake up, start making coffee and showering, the water demand increases and the weakened pipe bursts.

“There may be no way we can definitively conclude what happened, no way we ultimately will figure out what happened,” Drew said Wednesday evening.

The break caused treated water to gush rapidly out of the system.

“The consequence of this is that water was draining quickly out of our reserve tanks, and the treatment plant could not keep up supplying the necessary water for the rest of the community,” he said.

Over the next several days, Drew said, residents should expect to see “milky-looking or discolored water,” caused by “either additional air or sediment in the water — all normal consequences of a water main break and the associated pipe flushing that goes along with it.”

Residents are advised to open their cold water tap for between five and 10 minutes or until the water runs clear, Drew said, adding that the process may have to be repeated. As long as water coming from the tap is clear, it is safe to drink, he added.

Drew said water crews would continue to monitor the system through the evening. Normal pressure was expected to return by early afternoon, but the flushing will continue over several days to avoid rapid pressure changes and further pipe bursts.

State Department of Public Health staff, who originally told the mayor they would have to inspect water treatment levels, no longer need to do so, Drew said, “based on tests we’ve conducted and the protocols we’ve put into place.”

Immediately after the breach, eight tanker trucks and two hose tenders from other fire agencies throughout the state were placed on standby “with tens of thousands of gallons of extra water available for fire suppression — all staged at strategic locations throughout the city,” Drew explained.

Emergency crews and other agencies — some from as far away as Mystic — worked together during the emergency, the mayor said.

By late morning, Drew said, most of the Westfield section of the city was unaffected because water there is fed from an already treated tank at the Mount Higby facility near the Middlefield town line.

Middletown public schools, Vinal Technical High School, Middlesex Community College and all parochial schools were closed because they had experienced water disruptions and so the city could flush and replenish the pipes. Wesleyan University classes met as scheduled and the university was operating normally, spokesman William Holder said. Middlesex Hospital posted on its website that some morning elective surgeries were being postponed. The hospital went back online around 9 a.m. and was again accepting emergency and ambulance patients.

“Patients in the hospital are being cared for without interruption and measures are being taken throughout the hospital to address the situation,” the hospital said.

Connecticut Water had tankers at the hospital to supply the kitchen and food preparation areas with potable water while the break was being repaired, company spokesman Dan Meaney said.

Water bottles were being distributed at Russell Library by about 9:30 a.m.

“We made the decision to open early at 9:30 (normally, the library opens at 1 p.m. on Wednesdays) because we heard about the water main break,” Assistant Director Brandie Doyle said. “We have running water and wanted to open to give public access (to drinking water and bathrooms).”

One mother came down to the Russell Library Wednesday to pick up a case of bottled water with her children about an hour after the library opened.

“The great thing about the library being able to do this is that the library really is of the community, and when the community faces a crisis, it’s a good thing for us to be able to help when we can,” Library Director Matt Poland said.

Dave Sargis, owner of Meadow Meat Company on Eastern Drive, said his business, which is near a pumping station on River Road, parallel to the Connecticut River, wasn’t affected by the issue.

“The pumping station is literally 200 feet down the road, so we have massive water pressure here to begin with,” he said. “We have to replace our governors (pressure reducing valves) here every two to three years to keep the water pressure down. We’ve been fine.”